


Dr. Thunder

by SageoftheChuchus



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Absurd, Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, OC
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-06
Updated: 2018-07-06
Packaged: 2019-06-06 01:38:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15183884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SageoftheChuchus/pseuds/SageoftheChuchus
Summary: IF YOU HAVEN'T HEARD THE BIG FORSAKEN REVEAL there will be spoilers?Utter crack because we all need something to smile about right now.Ikora and Zavala have a lot on their plate, but choosing the new hunter to take Cayde's place is not one of them. It seems the late vanguard had one of his own incredibly eccentric friends in mind.





	Dr. Thunder

The appropriate time of mourning had passed, and of course the death still weighed heavily on every guardian in the tower, but Zavala had hoped, quite openly, that the hunter to take Cayde’s place would at least more responsible and easier to work with than the late vanguard. Some god of fate seemed to have laughed at that without even a hint of restraint. Perhaps Cayde himself was influencing events from Traveler-knew where. A concept that turned out more plausible than Zavala really considered possible when the idea crossed his might at first sight of the man announcing, in a booming voice to rival Shaxx’s, that he was there to be the new vanguard. 

The pale-white awoken was built more like a Titan more than a Hunter and a tank more than either of those things. He was not humble about it either, the first thing on his agenda, soon to be discovered, was flexing in the most obvious ways possible in his nearly inappropriately tight hunter attire as he handed a sealed letter to Ikora. The tail-ends of an impressive electric-yellow mullet nearly hit her in the nose when he turned his head dramatically in another over-exaggerated pose. 

The warlock, in a rare moment of blissful ignorance, smiled slightly at what she believed to be a final prank on the part of her fallen fireteam member. She unsealed the letter and unfolded it with careful fingers. Joke or not, she still wished to be careful with anything connected to Cayde. She and Zavala were over the worst of it, but she was still aware of the emptiness the exo had left them both with. 

Her long silence was soon concerning to Zavala, as was her lack of a sarcastic comment. 

“Zavala… this isn’t a joke. Or, if it is, it’s a very official one.” 

“What do you mean?” Zavala asked, already fearing for the number of aneurysms his ghost would have to revive him from in the coming days.

“This is Cayde’s handwriting, specifically nominating, ah, ‘Doctor Thunder’ as the next hunter van-”

“DOCTOR THUNDER!” The aforementioned hunter echoed in a volume that nearly made Zavala jump in surprise, and certainly startled the nearby guardian that dropped a flowerpot onto the pavement. 

“-guard.” Ikora finished with a smoothness only she could manage. 

“You are certain this message is from Cayde?”

“Yes. I recognize the handwriting and the signature. And if that wasn’t enough, it’s accompanied by an incredibly detailed sketch of a phallus in one margin. It’s about the size of a peapod and labeled ‘Zavala’s dong: actual size.’ Do you need further proof?” She said, somehow relating the information with a straight face as she offered the letter to Zavala. He instantly refused. She didn’t even have to look up to know to move the paper when a stray elbow came down there the letter had been a moment before. Dr. Thunder was flexing in as much space as he could conceivably take up and then some. “This is a legitimate letter from Cayde.”

“It is a curse.” Zavala muttered, watching in detached shock as Dr. Thunder’s poses increasingly inched towards erotic in nature. 

\----

Things progressed as anyone with a basic understanding of social functionality would guess. That is to say, poorly. By 2pm on day 62(yes, he was counting) Zavala reached his limit for what he estimated was the 7th time that day as some of his own, seemingly disciplined, formally reliable Titans were distracted from a mission briefing by one of Dr. Thunder’s loudly announced “Gun shows” about 20 feet away from Zavala’s station. 

Zavala was at an utter loss as to how the hunter got passed the password-protected PA system to announce such a thing. He was at even more of a loss when he hear Shaxx’s distinct hollering among the crowd. In a stroke of the darkest luck Zavala would ever consider possible, Dr. Thunder picked up on Shaxx’s impressed comments and responded with compliments of equal praise and loudness. Exuberant as both men were, the comments only escalated in both magnitude and volume. Somewhere just before “Your valliant muscles ripple more than the mightiest oceans!” Zavala decided that this war was the hardest war he’d ever had to fight. In the middle of “Your manly voice is more seductive than a siren’s call!” he decided he needed to look into retiring as vanguard. He had a suspicion that any qualified titans willing to take over would be slowly shrinking in number. Certainly not from the waking nightmare his life had become. Of course not.  
The fact that Doctor Thunder actually zapped one of the titans with an arc bolt in his excitement(“DOCTOR THUNDERRRR!”) was probably far more of a contributing factor.  
Even watching the bull of a man walk to one of his own class turned into a horrific visage as he attempted to bump a hunter’s shoulder with a well-intentioned fish and the much smaller man was promptly ‘nudged’ so hard he fell over the railing he was leaning against. The poor hunter tumbled off the tower to his death along with the last shred of Zavala’s sanity. 

“I would like to request the rest of the day off to think of a solution to end this threat to the very concept of order.” he said to an only-just-better-off Ikora. 

“In a hypothetical situation where I was to take today as leave with you, how irrecoverable, on a scale of one to ten, would a functioning system of leadership be by the day’s end?” The warlock asked, her eyes unmoving from a fixed spot somewhere over Dr. Thunder’s head. 

Zavala shook his head. “The Traveler itself would be unable to make Earth livable again.”  
Giving a solemn nod, Ikora seemed to agree. “I have to put a stop to this.”

“Yes, but how?!” 

“He keeps challenging you to matches in the crucible, right?’

Zavala scoffed. “Yes, something ‘about proving my muscles’ integrity as a titan.’ Of course I refused.”

“You refused.” Ikora said quietly. 

One of Zavala’s dark eyebrows quirked upwards. “I thought you swore off the Crucible?”

“I believe this qualifies as an emergency.” 

Zavala didn’t question the statement, very aware of the purple tendrils of light curling around her arms. Whenever Ikora lost this much composure, there was going to be hell to pay.

It was the match of several centuries, certain to be carved into the great mental books of guardian history, told to every new guardian for countless years to come. Dr. Thunder, while in reality a fairly intimidating fighter, was obliterated without even catching a single glimpse of Ikora between Shaxx announcing the match’s beginning and his announcing her victory less than seven seconds later. 

Hope was restored. Dr. Thunder dropped to a knee in front of Ikora and, in what may have been the first humble action of his life, pledged his eternal respect and admiration. 

\-----

It was a few days later and stability had started to return to the tower. Dr. Thunder, eager to follow any suggestion Ikora even began to hint at, became far more cooperative than Cayde had ever been. Hunters got their assignments for the first time in the two months Dr. Thunder had been in charge, ‘gun shows’ had been reduced from every hour to once a day, and Zavala was able to find some semblance of peace in the tower once again. At least for those few days following what had been dubbed “The Battle of Ikora Totally Wrecking Doctor Thunder.” 

Then, at the dawn of the 69th day, Zavala stepped out of the barracks onto the tower plaza, where he noticed a figure bathed in the grossly incandescent light of the sun. He approached the figure, reduced to all but a silhouette, arms stretched up and outward in the magnificent, fatherly celestial body’s rays. Zavala approached with a feeling of purpose and importance and was rewarded for his reverence as slowly his lit eyes adjusted to the burning radiance of the rising star. 

It was Cayde. Alive. 

The exo turned and illuminated sky-blue eyes met illuminated sky-blue eyes in a moment of perfect mutual understanding and relief.  
Zavala would forever deny the suffocating hug he nearly crushed Cayde in, as Cayde would forever deny returning it with every drop of strength his metal body could produce. 

“Thank the Traveler.” Zavala muttered as he drew back and looked at the Exo in disbelief he could possibly be alive. “You were dead.” 

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Nice coffin, by the way. Pain in the ass to get out of, but nice. And not cremation, so thanks for that… Apparently a guardian threw herself into a volcano for some kind of genie dragon or something and it brought me back… I feel kind of terrible about that, but there isn’t really much I can do about it right now...” 

Deciding to deal with that particular and deeply worrying issue with the warlock vanguard at his side, Zavala realized something incredibly important. “We need to find Ikora.” He said, taking off at once and expecting Cayde to follow. “To discuss the situation with Dr. Thunder.” When had that name become so normal to say? “And I suppose to show her you’re alive as well.” 

“Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait!” Cayde grabbed Zavala’s shoulder and the titan stopped and turned to the exo. “Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait…”  
Zavala waited, a touch impatiently. 

“Wait.” 

“What, Cayde?”

“You actually hired that guy? Zavala I thought you had more common sense than that!”

“Me? Lack common sense?” Zavala resisted the urge to grab Cayde by the shoulders and shake ‘common sense’ into him. “It’s your right to select the next vanguard. The letter you left with him! The handwriting, the-”

“Penis I drew, yeah.” Cayde finished, tone announcing his recognition. “Thunder and I were kidding around about him being the next vanguard and I was drunk, thought it was the funniest thing, so I gave it to him as a joke. And someone told me once that there’s a rule: anything with an inappropriate drawing on it can’t be an official document. Guess Thunder didn’t know about it.” Cayde was trying very hard not to laugh. He failed, but at least he made an effort. 

“That's not a rule, Cayde.” Zavala was then stunned into utter silence so shocked that even Cayde’s laughter quieted in the intensity of the lack of noise.  
The nearly-tangible silence and disbelief was disturbed only by the loud sound of an explosion across the tower and the unbelievably audible cry of “DOCTOR THUNDER!!!!”  
Cayde and Zavala, in sync for what was perhaps the only moment it would ever be possible for them to be so, looked at each other with expressions of horror and then took off at a sprint in the still-rising sun.


End file.
